‘Studio 666’ Review
Stars: Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffe, Whitney Cummings, Leslie Grossman, Will Forte, Jenna Ortega, Jeff Garlin | Written by Dave Grohl, Jeff Buhler, Rebecca Hughes | Directed by BJ McDonnell
The Foo Fighters play themselves in this vanity project horror-comedy, directed by BJ McDonnell (Hatchet III). Die-hard fans of the band will enjoy seeing their heroes on the big screen, but for everyone else it’s a mildly amusing, occasionally tedious outing that’s better at serving up gore than it is at delivering laughs.
Set in the present day, the film opens with Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl deciding that he wants to do something special for their upcoming tenth album, so he persuades the band to record in a Hollywood mansion that was once the site of another band’s grisly demise. The group – including bassist Nate Mendel, guitarist Pat Smear, drummer Taylor Hawkins, guitarist Chris Shiflett and keyboardist Rami Jaffee, all playing fictionalised versions of themselves – duly decamp to the mansion and begin recording songs, but it isn’t long before they’re targeted by demonic forces.
The best horror comedies (think Shaun of the Dead) pull off both great gags and decent scares, striking the perfect tonal balance between the two. Unfortunately, despite its best intentions, Studio 666 never quite gets there – instead it lets the gore do all the horror work and settles for amiably goofy rather than laugh-out-loud funny.
In fairness, the film’s central splattery set-piece is pretty good, to the point where you can clearly tell it was one of the main reasons the film got made in the first place. It’s just a shame that there’s nothing to match it elsewhere in the film, either in terms of gore or imagination.
As for the gags, they mostly involve the band bickering with each other, which isn’t helped by the fact that none of them have any real gift for comic timing. The exception is an inspired cameo from an unexpected musician, which comfortably gets the film’s biggest laugh. There are other, gag-free cameos too – Will Forte turns up as an ill-fated pizza delivery dude and John Carpenter contributes both a decent theme song and a dialogue-free turn as a music producer.
The performances are generally pretty ropey and other than Grohl and Jaffee, none of the band look like they’re really having any fun. Still, Grohl at least brings some likeable goofball energy to the whole thing and there’s a strong comic turn from Whitney Cummings as their horny neighbour.
The biggest problem is the script, which is unforgivably lazy throughout, particularly when the bodies start piling up and the Foo Fighters barely even notice that their fellow band members are dying, let alone have an emotional reaction of any kind. Similarly, the underlying horror story never really connects the way it should, so there’s no sense of suspense or tension.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the film is that the demonic creatures closely resemble the red-eyed monkey space ghosts from Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. That’s probably a coincidence, but as coincidences go, it’s rather delightful.
